Report: 9-year-old stowaway has history of misdeeds, including car theft

The 9-year-old Minnesota boy who slipped onto a flight to Las Vegas without a chaperone or boarding pass reportedly has a history of misbehavior well known to Hennepin County officials.

The Star Tribune reports a memo written by a county official says the boy was arrested two weeks ago after stealing a car. The newspaper reports the email was written to the County Board by an official in the Human Services and Public Health department. It offers no details on the car theft but reportedly says the boy has a history of sneaking into a Bloomington water park by blending in with large families and has been the subject of four assessments by child protection officials since last December.

Officials with both Delta Airlines and the Transportation Security Administration are reviewing video as they piece together how the boy slipped past gate agents and hopped a Delta Airlines flight Thursday with no boarding pass, KARE-11 reports.

Las Vegas television station KTNV reports police who questioned the boy at McCarran International Airport determined he was a runaway and turned him over to Child Protective Services. The station also reports Parole and Probation officials put an ankle bracelet on the boy so he could be tracked if he tried to run away again.

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Fox 9 says it's heard from sources it does not identify that the boy told Las Vegas police he had met someone from Nevada online and embarked on his journey in hopes of meeting them.

The Star Tribune's report says the email from the Hennepin County official says the boy's mother works at the Twin Cities airport and that there is an investigation into whether she helped him get to Las Vegas.

Transportation Security Administration officials say the boy was screened and was not a security threat. A spokesman for Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Pat Hogan, said security footage showed the 9-year-old “waited until the person who was at the gate was busy, and that’s when he got on the plane,” NBC News reports.

Crew members got suspicious about the boy once the trip was under way, and he was handed to security officials when the flight landed in Las Vegas. CNN reports that Delta has a clear policy about children flying alone on its website.